Sisters of St. Joseph-April 27 Soundings Update

The April 27, 2011, issue of Soundings Update is available at:
http://www.csjboston.org/su-April-27-2011.pdf

In this issue:

• an article on the latest Human Trafficking Symposium offered by the Anti-Trafficking Coalitition of the Boston Unit of LCWR -- the full press release can be found at: http://www.csjboston.org/pr-trafficking2.htm
• a brief story and pictures about our Good Friday Peace Vigil. There are a few more pictures of this vigil on our website at http://www.csjboston.org/INDEX.htm

On another note: A reader of this blog was concerned that someone posted an unwanted picture on my previous blog post. Perhaps I should have explained that the statue pictured in the previous post was given to me by a former student who was part of a service immersion retreat to Peru a few years ago. She purchased it while there because she knew of my Good Friday experiences in Mexico. Two of our retreat pilgrimages to Mexico happened to occur during Holy Week. Both times we joined with the people in one of the colonias for Stations of the Cross. 

We processed through the streets where parishioners had set up shrine-like places outside their homes to designate the stations. After we prayed at each station, a different group from the parish was invited to carry the cross to the next station -- men of various professions, mothers, older women, children, youth, etc. They carry it laying flat as pictured in the little statue. Sometimes they even carry a statue of Jesus in a glass casket.

At the last station they invite "las mujeres religiosas" to carry the cross into the church where the stations conclude. The Mexican sisters with whom we were staying insisted that I join them. It a very powerful experience of prayer for me to join with women religious from throughout Curnevaca, Mexico, for this sacred moment.




las mujeres religiosas during the Good Friday 2003 Stations of the Cross in Cuernavaca, MX

 

These are two pictures of the Via Cruz in Cuernavaca in 2003. There's not a good picture of the cross because it would have been intrusive to try and barge through the procession.

So...no...the statue is not of the seven dwarfs as someone suggested. In fact, it commemorates a sacred and deeply prayerful moment. I've since learned that this is the way the cross is carried in procession on Good Friday throughout Mexico, Peru, and all over Latin America.